Magick - Power and Place in Armageddon.

[Intrepid]

I should expand on this.  I've never liked sorcerors.  It always felt like powergaming to me, and so I've never made one.  That said, I will probably create a sorc one of these days so I have some firsthand opinions to go off of, but elementalists have a theme.  Sorcs are all about power.  With an elementalist, the power has a purpose, but with a sorc, you have everything (or almost everything) with seemingly no rhyme nor reason as to why.

I understand the theme needing wizards, but I'd rather see them have a different set of spells and even a whole new spelltree than the elementalists--even if said spelltree was far more powerful.

I realize that they use the same words of power, but I see elementalists and sorcerors are being different entities entirely.

[Morgenes]

How can you say that sorcerers have no theme?  The theme behind sorcerers it the theme behind the entire world.  It is why the world was corrupted and why it's the desert wasteland it is.  Defilers drained the planet of life, stealing power from it to fulfill their own wills.  If anything, sorcerers are the most thematically strong classes in the game.

And who says that the sorcerer spell tree is the same, or isn't the same as any elementalist spell tree?  And no, we don't want you chiming in here to confirm or deny this rumor!

[bloodfromstone]

I agree that there are too many magickers and, more importantly, magickal events around. Like someone else said, eventually you stop wanting to roleplay out the super omg fear of magick because your character would be doing nothing but hiding and crying. It does get to the point of OOC annoyance to see magickers about constantly, especially in the wild, and sit there and ooh and aah about the same tricks you've seen a dozen times with this one PC. I don't think karma should go away when you app or that magickers should be solely special apped sorcerers, but I certainly think that playing a long stream of magicker PCs is in poor taste. Even secret magickers, being discreet with them is all well and good, but that only solves the problem for a short while. If three or four people your PC has known pretty well turn out to be secret magickers within their lifetime, that's not very rare or mysterious. It gets more to the point of "Oh, he has sweaty palms. I sure hope he's not another secret magicker."

I think part of the problem is with those of us playing the mundanes, too, however. Sure, attacking magickers on sight is a problem of its own, but we also can't expect everyone to run back to town and emote pissing their pants every time they see a magicker, since that may be more than once within an IG week. I'm more referring to the amount of knowledge that non-magickers express. I think we've all seen exchanges where someone will say they were assaulted by a magicker. What kind? Well, they were invisible, so it must have been a Whiran! (This is just an example. No need for responses about how things other than Whirans can go unseen) Well, I didn't feel any water or earthquakes or anything, so it must have been a sorcerer! If they're sitting, they can't do anything to you! How do these PCs know these things? Why doesn't anyone lift any eyebrow when someone expresses this knowledge?
And it all circles around again. Because someone's past 5 PCs have dealt with magick on a daily basis, some of them have fought giant mystical creatures within their hometown, and couple of them have seen super magickal rituals and such, they begin to assume that you would have to be stupid or sheltered not to know a few basic things about magickers. If everyone single PC I have ever played has seen Vivs seal gaping wounds, it's not unexpected that I will begin to think that everyone should know this.

I don't really have a solution to the problem at this point. Mostly, I just wanted to point out the perpetuating cycle. I don't really think magicker players, mundane players, the staff, or anything else is at fault, but I do certainly think it has a negative effect on keeping the setting consistant with the docs.

[moab]

All the arguments against killing off the magicker classes revolve around "then I never  get to play one."  I think this argument is, while understandable, a bit shallow.

The topic comes up as part of the "magickers are too common" thread.

If they are too common, and I feel they are, we should remove a lot of them.

I for one would give up the chance to ever play another magicker if it meant the game would go that direction.

Further, you could always special app a sorc or something - so you would still get your chance to play a magicker.

So the idea that "you could never play one" is wrong. You could. It migh take awhile to finally get your app approved, but you would have your chance.

I'm even in favor of limiting sorc and magicker apps to one per player every six or twelve months.  What the hell?  What do we really loose? Not much.  And we stand to gain a whole lot of fear around the magicker classes and a lot more focus on the rough and tumble world of the mundane.

[Intrepid]

How can you say that sorcerers have no theme?  The theme behind sorcerers it the theme behind the entire world.  It is why the world was corrupted and why it's the desert wasteland it is.  Defilers drained the planet of life, stealing power from it to fulfill their own wills.  If anything, sorcerers are the most thematically strong classes in the game.

And who says that the sorcerer spell tree is the same, or isn't the same as any elementalist spell tree?  And no, we don't want you chiming in here to confirm or deny this rumor!

That's not actually what I'm referring to.  I'm well aware of the power source of the defilers and preservers, and I never stated that the class itself is invalid.

[Intrepid]

All the arguments against killing off the magicker classes revolve around "then I never  get to play one."  I think this argument is, while understandable, a bit shallow.

Actually, my argument is, "I don't think moab should dictate my rp experience."  It's like someone not wanting certain options to prompt, even though other players would use them.  I don't think the playerbase as a whole should deprived due to a single player's frustrations on a single aspect of play.

[Ghost]

As  somone who loves magickers and often plays them, i think it would be great to remove them all (except sorcerers) from the game and leave the sorcs as special app.

This would be good because the world would be as gritty and low-fantasy as it can get - and you would crap your pants when you met a magicker.

You just said my thoughts loud.  I wish all the magicker classes were special app only.

[Gimfalisette]

I love being a noob and knowing nothing about magickers. I imagine it's somewhat refreshing for the people I RP with too, because I'm always like, "WHAT, you're KIDDING ME, they can do THAT?!" And then I faint.

Since I'm not really interested in magickers in general--I've never enjoyed casting classes in other games, I prefer to whack things with swords--I'm not sure if I'd play one if I even had the option. Then I would also lose my sweet noobiness about them. From my perspective, I would be fine with magickers being always special apped, or minimally the population controlled in some way such as limiting those with karma to 1 magicker per every X RL months.

Although, I have to say, my character has met a lot of other characters and to her knowledge only one so far has been a magicker--the rest of them all seem to have normal day jobs.

I do think it's really valid if your current character has encountered magickers over and over for them to build up some knowledge and lose some fear about magick. And I also think with so much interaction between mundane and magickal all the time, there's logically going to be a lot more leakage of knowledge of what magickers can and can't do into the general populace. The docs don't reflect this, but the docs rest on the assumption that magick is a lot more rare than it actually ends up being. When there are gemmers hanging out at the Bard's Barrel with the regular folk and making friends, maintaining a level of superstition about magick is going to be hard. Zalanthas is a world of oral tradition by necessity, so it makes sense that when Amos learns something interesting about magickers, it's going to get passed around a lot--sometimes distorted, and sometimes not.

[WarriorPoet]

I've got little to add right now, bud I'd like to say this is an important discussion that deals with one of my only major complaints about Armageddon.

I hate seeing magickers on every corner, gemmed or un-gemmed. It completely ruins the mystique that magick used to hold for me. Instead of feeling that thrill of fear and excitement, I usually feel a pang of disgust. Maybe that's a personal problem, but I would love to see magicker classes of all sorts made far less common.

-WP

[Just one Magickal Kank]

Hi guys.  I am currently playing what is essentially my first magicker.  I waited a good while after picking up the karma because I had always said there were too many magickers, and I didn't want to be part of that problem, even though I -really- wanted to play one.

I certainly wouldn't be opposed to any reasonable system of limitations, such as 1 magicker every X months or whatever, but I think the most important factor is self-restraint.  Don't go nuts apping magickers just because you can.  Some people do this and then all but brag on the GDB about it.  If I had my way, trusting a player to not repeatedly app magickers would be a very big part of the "trust" that karma represents.

But anyway, playing a magicker has changed my mind somewhat.  I think they are an important part of the game world, and limiting their numbers too much would limit magicker-to-magicker roleplay.  If the Elementalist Quarter is barren, the gemmers will congregate in the commons.  I know what you're saying: they already do.  Well, yes and no.  I sure stay in the Elementalist Quarter 99% of the time, for a variety of IC reasons.  Also, as a gemmer I met a char who had probably been alive for a significant period of time while a past character, very prominent in the city, was alive.  This prominent character had -never- seen the mage in question, which leads me to believe that he also did a good job staying in his place.  

I don't care if this means I spend a lot of time solo-RPing or idling waiting for someone else to log in in the temple.  I apped a magicker because I wanted magicker RP, not tavern chitchat BS.  I'm not going to break char just for some oh-so-precious "interaction" with Aide #17 or Dusty Miner #82.  (Not knocking either of those roles: Dusty Miner in particular is always a favorite of mine, either to play or interact with.)

That's what I think is most important, at least as far as the situation in Allanak is concerned: segregation.    The number of magickers could be 50/50, and as long as everyone stays where they belong most of the time, everything is peachy.

And yeah, guys, for 99% of all commoner chars, I think it's best to roleplay more or less complete ignorance about magick until your character has actual in-game experience with it.  Most characters should -NOT- know the things they almost always seem to know about magickers.

[Aldiel]

A guild, like the Guild, that is an underground council of magickers.  Located actually underground far to the east.  

[Medena]

I really wonder if those of you who see magickers everywhere you go see them because you, the player, know what to look for and therefore what your character sees is coloured by your own OOC knowledge.

Myself, I have yet to play a magicker and have very little knowledge of the magic system. I don't know what spells there are, don't know what magic can or can't do.  What little knowledge I do have in this area has usually come from reading about it here on the GBD.  In two years of playing, I have seen instances of magic use maybe 10 times?  And all but 2 of those 10 times were with one character, one of my very first, who spent time with a Vivaduan.

I had a ranger with about 12 days of play time who roamed the grasslands a whole lot and who only once (at least to her knowledge or mine) encountered a magicker.  That particular time was with a sorceror and though it wasn't quite face to face, it was pretty unmistakable as the evidence of magic was extremely tangible.  She very likely did encounter other magickers in her travels but just never knew.  Though she was pretty dumb and naive, I don't think her lack of awareness of magick would be that much greater than the average Tuluki. I mean, why would most have a clue about it?

[Twilight]

I guess I have a different definition of low fantasy than a lot of you.  Low fantasy as a term is aspect oriented; its definition changes dependent on what aspects of high fantasy are being contrasted.  I view Armageddon as low fantasy in that a lot of the action is day to day and gritty, rather than epic quests.  

However, I view the world as having a high degree of magick, rather than a low degree.  World devastated by magick, check.  Two out of three cities known to exist completely wiped out by magick, one of them having been partially destroyed by magick once before, check.  Templarate of both cities having (until recently) access to magick, check.  Entire quarter of one city devoted to those who can magick, check.  Various badass beings, from the Dragon to lesser known but existant ones involved with magick, check.  Sorcerer kings, check.  Entire armies having been wiped out with magick, check.  Undead, check.

So, low fantasy?  Yes.  Low magick?  No.  Now, what I love about Armageddon, is that generally the magick in it is more about low fantasy than it is about high fantasy.  Magick is rarely used to perform some miraculous quest to save the princess.  Its used to feed yourself, or get yourself water.  Its used to kill other people, rarely for noble reasons, rarely for truly evil reasons.  Magick within Armageddon is used lots of times for gritty reasons that would fall solidly in low fantasy.

So don't say Armageddon is low fantasy and thus should be low magick.

[Malken]

I'm going to have to go with Medena.. I recently played a 50+ days hunter-type character, in the north, that character went everywhere from the grasslands all the way to the tablelands, on almost a daily basis, and in -all- of my playtime, I have never encountered a magicker, at least not an open, hostile one..

It was to the point where I was complaining that I didn't feel like I was playing 'Armageddon' to some of my friends because I didn't see muls, didn't see magickers, didn't see sorcerers, and that's probably the way it should be.. I sure did hear a lot about them on the tavern boards, but my character never met one face to face in my many many months played with that character. And that was -very- recently.. So I don't know where all these sudden magickers are all popping out from, but now I really feel somewhat stupid that I never noticed any before

[Vynestra]

Being one of the "mundane" I guess my perspective is if you refer to the non-magic wielding roles as mundane then you are really making more people want to play magickers. Everyone wants to be special (heck, I would settle for merely average just to bring me up from where I have been). So every player wanting to be special leads many to want to play magickers. Maybe we can just call us normal people, non-magic types, so there isnt the inherent stigma of being less of a character because we dont have any karma built up? Calling someone mundane really has a bit of mean side to it.

Oh and to be clear, I have played a slave before and it is my favorite role to date.

When I talk to the Imms about my character or anything else they usually say something like "Wow, you have really shitty stats!". Yet that is what happens all the time and yet I have fun here and there and that isnt a problem. How many of you can boast of having a poor, below average, and averge, and good? I relish in my humanity

[Intrepid]

Actually, mundane doesn't refer to a player, Vynestra--it refers to a character.  It's easier for me to type out "mundane" then it is for me to type out "non-magical", and I use the term mundane to refer to my own pcs who are not mages as well.

It's not an insult in the slightest.  You're reading into it.

[Marauder Moe]

Yeah, "mundane" is synonimous with "non-magical" in terms of fantasy RPGs.

[Cegar]

Heh heh... muggles.

[Lavalamps]

I like the idea of one magicker per X RL months.
It would definetly help this problem.
It would also make people pay more attention to their magicker characters, flehsing them out and making them deeper and making them people first, magickers second... because they'd only get a limited amount of mages.
I also like the idea of magickers only allowed through special apps.
But at the same time... I like seeing magickers, and I really don't think there are THAT many... but then again, I'm just a noob, so what do I know?

[Morrolan]

A thought...

Why do we see so many magickers in the wilderness?  (And I don't, personally...)

Because warriors, rangers, assassins, and merchants often join clans, effectively pulling them out of the wilderness.  Shady classes tend to stick to cities.

So who else are you going to run into in the wilderness, especially away from roads?  The other outcasts...

Morrolan

[cyberpatrol_735]

With the whole HRPT thing (war) going down, Allanak is being exposed to the magicker population and surprisingly enough, -most- of the people I've seen roleplay a fear or unwillingness, even though it's blatantly in their face, they don't understand it, how long it will last, is this permanent? Can I still make babies, etc...

As far as reactions go.. I haven't really seen anybody like.. sweet, teach me how? or.. do that again!

I've seen some surprised looks and sceptical assumptions, but nothing over the top.. everyone is playing the general consensus of fear.. IMHO.

[Kelen]

I only read the first couple of monstrous posts on here, so some of this may have been stated already.

I have a mixed mind on this. I do think that the power and yet the amount of magickers needs to be limited, or else the game would be a bit more...twinkish I'll say.

Yet, there is so much put into the magick system, code wise and in other ways, that it's a shame all the players cannot experience it. (I've gotten on the bad side of more than a few people In-game so I don't have much karma to play a magicker first-hand)

But I think so far, the magickers in-game have done a good job not abusing their power. There's a few things I think they should stop doing, though, because I am tired of whiran attacks where you hit them until they are near-death and they run after killing a bunch of your party. That I think is BS, when it is done over and over again.

But I like the position magickers are in. Oash, for example, provides a haven for some. You can freely live in allanak, and practice your skills, as long as your not a defiler. Don't go to Tuluk, there is some creepy shit going on there.

I'm not going to give anything away, but don't be a fooled into thinking there is no magick in Tuluk because the templaret kills any -abominations- they find. There is alot of hypocracy behind that. (By the way, jstorrie, I am not necessarily refering to them doing anything with magickers)

SO, I can understand what you are saying, LoD, and I guess it simply comes down to the playerbase to change it.

[jstorrie]

That is giving things away, or would be if it was true (which it might or might not be.)

The northern templarate are not fools, but what they may or may not be doing with magickers in the north is not appropriate for public discussion in an IC or OOC sense.

[moab]

Actually, my argument is, "I don't think moab should dictate my rp experience."  It's like someone not wanting certain options to prompt, even though other players would use them.  I don't think the playerbase as a whole should deprived due to a single player's frustrations on a single aspect of play.

How can this be your argument?

I didn't start the thread - the thread comes up again and again and many people complain about the magicker problem.

I'm just giving you what I believe is the best solution for the mud.  Further, you have your RP dictated all the time by the whim of people you don't even know - the staff, so is it just me you have a problem with?  If so - there's no argument worth our time here.  If you have some reason why this isn't a good solution, I would like to hear it.

[jhunter]

Actually, my argument is, "I don't think moab should dictate my rp experience."  It's like someone not wanting certain options to prompt, even though other players would use them.  I don't think the playerbase as a whole should deprived due to a single player's frustrations on a single aspect of play.

How can this be your argument?

I didn't start the thread - the thread comes up again and again and many people complain about the magicker problem.

I'm just giving you what I believe is the best solution for the mud.  Further, you have your RP dictated all the time by the whim of people you don't even know - the staff, so is it just me you have a problem with?  If so - there's no argument worth our time here.  If you have some reason why this isn't a good solution, I would like to hear it.

Because there -isn't- really a problem to begin with. There isn't any need for a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.